Letting Go
by Procrastinating.genius
Summary: Jim Kirk can't hold on for much longer, Tarsus IV will break him if it already hasn't. As he wears down, Sam watches on from a far off planet's live feed. Rated T for violence and Tarsus-y things like angst and hurtJim.
1. Chapter 1

Sam Kirk is nineteen when his world falls apart.

It was a normal day, at first. He sat in his cheap apartment, the kind without windows, with his roommate watching a boring documentary about how old-fashioned cars used to be made. The thought crosses his mind how his genius little brother would love this show and how much he misses him when the program is interrupted by breaking news.

Sam rolled his eyes. He didn't care if some far-off planet suffered from flooding or whatever their soon to be fixed problem was. He pushed his sore body off the couch, about to get himself and his roommate another cold beer when he registered what the anchorwoman was saying.

"— planet Tarsus IV's colony, founded only four Earth years ago, was reported to have had over half the population of eight-thousand found dead. So far, Starfleet has discovered three-thousand-four hundred-and twenty-three survivors. They estimate that there may be a dozen or so more still in hiding.

"Though facts are still unclear, it is apparent that there was a famine caused by an unknown foreign fungus. There have been rumors that the colony's governor, a man by the name of Kodos, conducted a mass-murder—"

The nearly empty bottle falls from Sam's now shaking hand for what feels like hours but really the rewarding crash comes in only seconds. Not that he truly notices it, though. The only thought going through his mind is _Jimmy_.

Jimmy who was sent to Tarsus IV only six months ago.

Jimmy who cried when his brother fell from a tree and broke his arm. Jimmy who sat in desolation when he went without food for a day because Frank punished them. Jimmy who couldn't accept the weight of their father's death. Jimmy who died a little more inside each time their mother left. Jimmy who begged Sam not to abandon him.

Jimmy who laughed every time Sam ruffled his sun-catching hair. Jimmy who smiled a grin worth countless amounts of gold when Wiona came home with hugs and cheers. Jimmy who would muster Sam improvised stories of adventure when the sleepless nights spent stuck at the farmhouse hit especially hard on their dreaming hearts. Jimmy who made his worst days bright.

Jimmy who was probably dead, his straved corpse lying on some back-water planet's famine riddled soil with his impossible blue eyes now dull and pointed to heaven, no one bothering to close them—

And then very suddenly tears are pouring down his face. He should've been there, he should've fought for him. Sam could have protected Jimmy with his bright blue eyes and gleaming smiles.

_If only he hadn't left so soon—_

"_Sam_! Sam, what's wrong? Is someone—" his roommate, Trep, says, his alarmed voice rising in pitch and his expression bending in concern. Sam interrupts him mid-sentence.

"Wrong? _Wrong_! Everything is wrong! The last _fucking person_ I have left to care about is on that _fucking planet, _probably dead because of some _fucking famine_! No, _no_, I know, Trep, he _could_ be alive. He _could_ be enjoying a nice fucking brunch with some shit-faced 'Fleet. If he even is alive up there, he's most likely sick and dying and cold and wondering why his brother or mom isn't there to be with him. How come no one's notified me about this!? I'm his goddamn brother! I—" . . . _left him_.

And as if the tears weren't enough, the sobbing starts. Sam can barely even speak as Trep leads him into his room to rest, but he does manage to muster out a weak "I should have been there." between sobs.

His friend's expression dissolves entirely.

"Go to sleep, Sam. I'll call Winona."

He's too far gone in nightmares to protest.

* * *

Jim Kirk knows there is a fine line between man and animal, human and beast, and has known ever since Frank laid his feral eyes on him. But that division became blurred as the people around him changed.

He isn't so sure if there is even a line between them, really, but if there is, well, he's crossed it.

He's crossed plenty of lines in the past weeks.

It starts when the domestic kitchen life fades so he begins to eat the dying leaves and he scavenges for insects under rocks. And when he sobs over the body of his best friend—_he's too young to see this_—and promises her that he'll keep the kids safe. He will— whatever it takes.

Whatever it takes.

And soon he's scurrying into his neighbors' houses— _I'm so sorry, Mrs. Pickfield, I'm so, so sorry_— stealing their food, then he's filing into boxing matches to fight strangers for their ration stamps and _goddammit_— it's still _not enough_.

Nothing will never be enough.

He will grow into his old age coming home to half a dozen gleaming eyes, never with enough food, never, and have to accept their disappointed gazes. They will never ask for more because they know JT is doing everything he can to feed them, that he hasn't eaten in _days_, and he is so, _so_ _tired_. _  
_

But these kids need to eat more than JT needs his sanity.

He spends the night awake, as always, on guard, allowing himself to wonder _why me?_ for the first and last time in his life. Because he knows what he'll have to do tomorrow.

_Whatever it takes_.

He wanders into town like he does everyday, chills seeping into his body bone-deep, and his step lacking the confidence he usually strides in with. He makes his way to stand in front of the guard (whose appraising gaze always seems to linger a little _too _long) but his eyes can't seem to lift up to meet his. Part of him hopes the man will refuse his silent offer.

This weak piece of him is disappointed.

_Whatever it takes._

JT leaves the room feeling disgusted and filthy and absolutely _gone_. He is one-thousand percent gone, his weathered soul finding a restful place to have peace, something he can never, never have because the screams of the dead are already haunting his dreams and he can't even feel his stomach anymore and he knows he will never be the same.

All he has left to want is death.

Then his body littered with his dead father's blue eyes, his ghost mother's blonde hair, his gone brother's smiles, his uncle Frank's scars, and the murderous guard's finger prints will be dead with their horrible art printed on it. Printed on _him_.

He finds it morbidly comical that so many people have left their marks on him, but he will never be able to touch them. _They're gone, they left you behind._

_Nevernevernevernevernevernevernever_

_Never. _It's all he seems to be able to think about (other than the phaser fire and screaming and whispers that always play in the background, of course). And it turns out that JT is so lost in his unsound thoughts that he doesn't even realize he's made his way back at camp until the two squirrels clutched tightly in his grasp cause the desolate children to hop out of their own misery for a moment of excitement.

"JT! JT, where'd you get these?" Seven-year-old Kevin grins crookedly. It's not something he sees everyday, this happiness. Of course the kids are excited to see him come back, but his haul today brings lots new cheer.

He wishes it wouldn't.

His mouth won't work as he opens it and tries to speak. Kevin looks concerned, his brows furrowing together and he turns his big green eyes up to look at him, but Jim can't make the eye-contact. When he looks above Kevin's head he finds that Tom is staring at him with confusion from across the camp.

Already his friend suspects something.

JT quickly lowers his gaze to the ground again. He knows how to hide emotions, it was his lifestyle living with Frank alone, but the shame and self-loathing are becoming part of him. He has to do better.

Kevin is still standing in front of him, watching and waiting, and Jim supposes he should say something, if he can.

He impresses himself when he smiles at the little boy. It's weak and incredibly fake but the fact that he can even manage it at all surprises him. It disgusts him at the same time, though, because _how can he smile when everything is wrong?_

Practice must have been helpful, he supposes. He used to have to act that way around Sam. Before he left, of course.

And, like always when he thinks of his brother, he feels the stab of hurt. Was Frank too much? Did Sam not care about him? Did he do something wrong?

He must have done something wrong, he always does.

Kevin walks away slowly, suspiciously and all Jim wants say is to _stop worrying about me! _even though that was the only thing he wanted six months ago, for someone to care. The only thing he longs for now is to crawl into his broken mind and to never come out.

_No one can touch me there._

JT's smile is gone (_was it ever really there?_) when his mind drifts to a happier place and he doubts it will ever come back.

...


	2. Chapter 2

**Poor Tommy can't even.**

JT didn't see the guard as he shot her, Cassie. He didn't hear him fire his phaser as so much as he felt the reverberating ring in his ears. He didn't see the deadly weapon turn to him as so much as catch a glimpse of a flash of silver.

Instead, he watched his best friend.

Her mouth opened in a silent scream, and her head snapped back as though someone tugged on her brown locks. Then her body stood there for a second before it folded in on itself. First her corpse kneeled, as if it was in prayer, then her head pointed down, sightless eyes fixed upon the swirling dust, before it all together collapsed on the ground, Cassie's beautiful green eyes dull.

_Not Cassie's anymore. _JT doesn't know it yet, but this will replay in his dreams over and over. So slowly it's like watching a step-by-step film.

But he doesn't watch them, he _relives_ them— much like tonight.

. . .

He knows they know.

He knows they know that he has nightmares every time he ever sleeps. He knows they know he has blood on his hands, they can see the killer in his eyes the same way they can see his stolen phaser turned to _kill_.

He knows they know what he did for them. What he will do again to just to feed them.

JT can barely walk that morning when he wakes up (and he can still feel the fingers of the soldier on him), his hand going to his ever-present weapon as he suddenly escapes his unsettling dream with a audible gasp. He sits in his upright position for a moment, letting himself breathe in his shallow breaths while he reminded his body that no, he wasn't really watching the traumatic death of his best friend or about to be shot at.

"Why were you back so early yesterday, JT?"

He snapped his head in the direction where the voice came from, behind him, and stared at Tom as his friend made his way to him, an old-fashioned gun slung casually on his shoulders. He tried to move his body to face him, but the instant he inched his legs, he had to bite his lip to keep from yelping in pain. The aching from his prostitution was nearly unbearable.

He'd have to try to move later, when no one would be watching. Especially Tom, who suspected.

"Why are you so sore, man? And how'd you get those squirrels yesterday—I haven't seen any animals in weeks." Tom stared, looking for a reaction to gauge, but he didn't give him any to look for. He made his face a perfect mask of indifference, the same countenance he wore before entering a fight.

_Tom, please don't do this to me. _But his friend didn't relent, and JT knew that no matter what he said, Tom would know. What's the point in lying anyway?

Deep breath. _He knows. He knows already, just do it._ "It was the South Guard, the one always stationed at the big rock in front of the fighting ring." JT said, voice breaking. "His name is Toby."

And his face falls. He looks so sad, so incredibly sad— sad for him, eyes filled with pity for him. JT grits his teeth together as Tom ducks his head in between his hands, but not before he can catch sight of a few tears slipping from Tom's good eye. _I don't want your pity, I didn't want to tell you. You did this, this is your fault._

_"_It was _my _choice, Tom, I couldn't—"

"Couldn't what!? Couldn't let us starve? _Look at yourself_, man. When was the last time you've eaten? You're all skin and bones! And I can't even— I-I—" His face falls into his hands as he takes a few breaths. "J-just imagine from my point of view, okay? Just think for a second what this is to me." His voice hardens and his face turns to stone and Jim can't find any room to argue with. "My best friend watches his best friend die and then comes back covered in blood and won't speak for a whole day. We don't know what happened, we don't know where Cassie is, and you— _you _were just devastated. And then the next thing we know, you're going out everyday before anyone wakes and coming back in the middle of the night with food stamps and broken bones. But you keep on leaving. You sleep for two hours and go on to God-knows-where, doing God-knows-what and I'm—_we're_— stuck here worrying about you.

"You waste away because you won't sleep, you won't eat and you're just—just _dying_ in front of us and we can't do a goddamn thing! And now— what, you're selling yourself? You can't. Y-you just can't do that, it crosses the line—"

"Line?" JT laughs humorlessly. It's so filled with insanity that it would have scared him if he hadn't known it was coming. "What line, man? There's no lines here! Everybody does what they have to here, there are no lines _to_ cross."

His expression looks pained as he prepares to answer. "JT—" But he is immediately interrupted by the hum of an engine. A StarFleet Starship engine.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Jimmy once told Sam that if he ran fast enough, the loneliness couldn't catch up. The idea amazed him, to sprint away and leave your troubles panting in the dust? Incredible, fantastic, unreal.

And it worked.

It worked when Sam bolted the house when he was eight. No plans, no money, but most importantly no Jimmy. So he came back home.

It worked when Frank first hit him and then Sam (age twelve now) smacked him right back, and when he tore out of the house. He had money this time (hidden under his baseball hat in the garage for emergencies like this), and plans (he already studied the bus schedules), but he still did not have Jimmy (who was crying in the house, hugging himself tight because his brother wasn't there to). And so he went back.

It did not work, however, on the day Jim drove Dad's corvette off a cliff.

Sam was pissed already but when he heard Frank was selling Dad's car, he snapped. He stomped up to his room and pulled the packed duffel bag from under his bed a tugged out the credits he'd been storing in his sock drawer. Everything about this day was a blur, but he remembers clearly Dad's eyes stuck on Jimmy's head staring at him knowingly, pleadingly.

_Please don't leave me._ he had said, and damn it all to hell if it didn't shatter his heart into a million pieces. But he'd been holding back for so long _and couldn't he see?_ Couldn't Jimmy see that nothing was going to get better?

He was eighteen anyways, he could do this. He _could_.

And Jimmy was old enough to take care if himself. He got flawless grades, the teachers loved him, and Frank only gave a smack every other night. If he used that big brain of his he'd be fine. It was everything Sam clung to.

It's almost funny how ironic his last words to him before he leaves are.

_There's a sandwich in the fridge, Jimmy. Don't starve._

**Please review! Bring on the flames!**


	3. Chapter 3

The sound made the breath escape Sam's lungs for no reason at all. _Real_ reason, that is.

It was distant and faint but he could hear it, the bearly audible voice in the background, covered by the anchorman's tragic facts. It had to be Jimmy. It had to be. He needed it to be Jimmy's voice.

Sam had been watching the holo for two days straight now, but that was the only thing he could discover, a possibility. He needed the truth. He either needed to see Jimmy's grave or he needed to see his smiling face, he needed to know if he was dead or he needed to know if he had gone against all odds and survived.

Somewhere deep within him, he knew Jimmy was dead. He saw the faces of the dead all over the feed and the graveness of the situation filled him with hopelessness. Stern-faced Starfleet's men and women carrying corpses, all of them gaunt from hunger and their faces tied into scowls with anguish. Sam imagined that they were grateful for the end of their suffering.

Even the survivors scowl. At the rescue teams, at the cameras. . . hell, they scowl at the oxygen they breathe and the water they drink. Sam almost wondered if their faces would be stuck like that forever.

The news gave him different angles to look from. The one they showed the most often was the view of the endless stream of bad-tempered survivors, all frowns and furrowed brows, lumbering into a starship. In the background there was an even thicker river of corpses that were carried away. The second perspective was a bird's-eye view that showed the two lines (both of which he still couldn't see the end of) and a city in smolders. Fires burn everywhere, but no one paid them as so much a second of heed, seeming as careless as the smoke drifting up into the dull sky.

It's as Sam was watching this when he heard a boy talking. He had scanned and reviewed every visible face, but hadn't caught as so much as a glimpse of his blonde-haired brother. But he heard that voice, the faint sound of Jimmy somewhere beyond his screen, the sound of his salvation, the forgotten hope of his brother's survival— and then a boy comes into Sam's view, but not his face, and is it his imagination or does that boy's hair glimmer like Jimmy's? Everything was right, was a correct description of him, his brother, his hair was a little darker (but that happens to lots of people, right?), he seemed to be a bit shorter than Sam remembered (he hadn't seen him in several months, anyway), but that voice was a perfect fit, and he knew, knew with all his heart and all his soul that it was Jimmy standing before him. And there is nothing Sam has loved more in the world than this boy so he allowed the joy to escape his mouth and for the tears to break out of his eyes like they had tried so desperately to do before as he turned around and—

_and he sees a stranger._

Sam sees _a stranger _without his father's blue eyes, or his mother's blonde hair, or the Sun's radiant smiles. He sees a stranger with dark brown eyes instead of the sky and he sees freckles and scars like he had never seen before and he sees crooked teeth and a scowl.

It's not Jimmy.

And Sam is so stupid, so very remarkably _stupid_ that he allowed himself to harbor the smallest kindle of hope for even a second that there was a chance (_"—approximately 43 percent of the population has survived what experts are calling the 'Tarsus Massacre—'"_) that he was alive, that he had the slightest notion things could get better (_because they don't and they never, never will)_ and then, somehow, Sam finds himself standing up with his fist pounding against the wall and his face is wet and his throat is sore from screaming and he would like to just go to sleep, just to sleep, and wake up in the morning to find that this was all just a short nightmare because that's what this is— fast, too fast.

It came up too quickly and now Sam's world has fallen apart because all he can think about is how Jimmy was gonna go far.

And he _is_ far. Too far away for Sam to come and cradle his broken body and close his blue eyes (_just go to sleep, Jimmy, no one can hurt you now_) because all that boy wanted was peace and damn them all to hell— everyone in the whole goddamn _universe_— if they didn't give him just that.

_No, he didn't deserve this, no, no, no no, no—_

_..._

_"_No_,_ I can't _sleep! _I don't need to sleep, I need to know where my kids are—!"

"Mr. Carsi, if you would." The female doctor interrupted as she loaded a hypo. The male security guard nodded and pressed his cold hand against JT's shoulder, effectively pinning him into the bed's cushions and again in the mercy of the doctor.

JT's mind helpfully reminded him of a different time, with a different guard pinning him down, and he involuntarily squirmed. He felt his panic rising and looked around the medical tent for an escape route.

"—BPM is rising, Robert, _get your hands of off him!_ He's having a panic attack." She glared at the man as though he did it on purpose. She then snapped her head around to face JT.

"Woah, there kid, calm down, breathe in nice and slow." She inhaled and exhaled two big breaths with him. "No one here is gonna hurt you, I'm just giving you this sedative to get you some sleep, calm you down, we can find your friends—"

JT let his eyes dart from the man to the woman. "_No_." he cried as she plunged the syringe into his neck. "Please!"

Darkness blossomed into his field of vision, but he fought it with everything he had left. "My kids. . ." _they're starving, help them, please, please help them. _

"Goddammit, kid, how are you still awake?" was the last thing he heard before he felt all the blood drain from his face. JT suddenly felt cold and feverish all at once, and it seemed that the two intensities went at war with each other to conquer and control his already weak body. His mind then became a blank canvas and panicked words from the outside painted a jumbled mass of confusion on his brain. He didn't understand what they were saying, or who _they_ were. He didn't know where he was or what was happening.

"_He's seizing! Hurry, Robert, get another doctor!_"

**Okay! So— good, bad, meh? Tell me what you think! Also, should I have Bones coming in the next chapter or not? **


	4. Chapter 4

JT could've been happy with her.

Even at a young age, he knew he didn't like commitment, but he would've done it for Cassie. She was as bright as him, maybe even smarter, just as fun, but she had the sensibility to think things through, a trait people never let JT forget he lacked.

And she was dead. _Why was she dead?_

She died to save him, to let him live another day, the same way she damned him. She was gone but she was the only thing he ever wanted. Even if he got away from this blood-stained rock, Cassie would follow him like a ghost until he finally fell under the curse of sleep. Then she would show herself, little glimpses of the friendship they had, of what he wanted to grow into something more.

And it could've, if they had enough time.

They didn't.

. . . .

When he opened his eyes, he saw white.

_Am I dead? _He thought, but he couldn't get anywhere past that chilling notion for a few seconds due to a pounding headache. He squeezed his eyes shut until he thought he could take the artificial brightness that he wasn't used to. He looked up to find a white, plain ceiling—and discovered he was in a room. He didn't know why this startled him so much until he realized that he hasn't been in a room for months because up until then his life had revolved around getting enough firewood to stay warm and stealing enough shoes because everyone in his group had worn theirs to the soles on the forest's merciless terrain. And this wasn't a normal room, either, he saw the stars from his window.

There weren't any ships on Tarsus . . . until. . . until Starfleet arrived.

Until Starfleet arrived and he went to check if they were really there to help and was taken into a tent by some officers trying to medicate him. But now he's on a ship, a ship he doesn't want to be on because the others aren't here. _And why aren't they here?_

They're not here because JT told them _stay away, just wait until I come back. If I haven't by tomorrow— run._

He tries to convince himself to take it slow.

It doesn't work.

In no time, he is swinging his agonizingly sore body from the bed and barely managing to stand on his aching feet. As he stands up, he lets the pain sink in and accepts it (because that's what Tarsus taught him to do: be smart enough accept your suffering but be strong enough to push through) instead of denying it like he did before with Frank. He doesn't allow his feet to stumble, he can't allow his feet to falter because his kids are so smart but they're too loyal for their own good and he knows, knows with terrible certainty, that they listened to his order and the rescue team left them behind because he didn't come back to them the same way his mother didn't for him, either. And JT taught them too well to hide for them to be found.

And they ran, didn't they? They would've because they trusted him but now they're probably alone on that dead planet, left with only ghosts to talk to and their ashes to sit in.

Look at how far the people who trust him get.

_They trusted me, and I let them die._

He just escaped his room and started to pick up speed down the hallway when he turns a corner and runs into a man in scrubs.

"Kid!" The man looks surprised but he seems like he recognizes him. JT notes that he looks too young to be a doctor. "You're not supposed to be awake until tomorrow! What are you even doing out of your room— you just had a serious allergic reaction to your medication and you nearly _died_ because of it. That, combined with a panic attack and on underfed— "

JT spares himself the lecture.

"Where are they," he growls, effectively halting the doctor's rambling. "Where are my kids? Thomas Leighton, you know him? _Where are they?"_

He looks completely unimpressed, so much so that JT imagines he's been growled at by plenty of Tarsus survivors.

The man rolls his eyes. "Look, kid, we've looked everywhere on your God-forsaken rock. If there was a single soul on that planet, we would know. I promise you your little friends are here or on another ship."

"Where are they?" He nearly screams. His voice is cracking and he can feel tears in the back of his eyes and how dare he? How _dare_ that doctor try to make light of that planet or what happened there?

He has the decency to look apologetic. "Aw, kid. I'm sorry. I mean, I don't know where—" but he cuts himself off, seeming thoughtful. He takes out a PADD and taps on it until it opens a new page and then hands it to him.

He takes it and stares at it curiously. Initially, it looks like two lists. After looking at it for a few seconds, he sees that it _is_ two lists—one of the dead, one of the living and what ship they're on.

He scans the on on the right side first and, in shock, drops the PADD onto the floor.

As it clutters and the man curses, he can see it in front of him, playing before his mind's eye— Kevin Riley, the first on the deceased.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

He doesn't mean to.

He really, really doesn't. It's just that Sam is going stir-crazy stuck on this planet, and he wants to know what's happening to Jimmy, and Winona _still_ hasn't contacted him or even tried to call him back, and he honestly should've known this was going to happen, to prepare for this beforehand.

And, _dammit_, he doesn't want to go to work when he should be sitting his ass back at the apartment and trying for the life of him to find his brother somewhere on the live feeds.

But he needs something to pay for his ride to Tarsus IV. And besides, maybe this can get his mind off of Jimmy, prod him into a more healthy atmosphere.

Sam's not stupid, he knew his co-workers were going to be talking about the situation that's topping every news station as they melted down rocks at the factory, but he didn't expect this. He didn't expect to hear Jaylin complaining about how everyone was making too big a deal about it (so that he had to completely ignore the conversation). Or Yukion debating wether or not Kodos made the right decision (so that he had to excuse himself to another room). Or Krisco joke that he would take his vacation on Tarsus just so he come back and have a _bad-boy broody look_ (so that Sam dropped a splash of molten rock on his hand later that day).

Krisco suffered from burns that would take him out the rest of the week and called him insane.

Sam really, really didn't mean to.

**Kevin! Kevin, no!**


End file.
